Weird Comics: Chuck Colson – Born Again

QuoteSome comics seek to effectively recreate the memorable scenes and stories of the Bible or they present modern tales of religious folks and their struggles. Then there are the quasi-biographical, “here’s how this poor schmuck found salvation” stories. Those comics are always entertaining in their own morbidly special way. A prime example of the latter is Chuck Colson –Born Again, a comic book adaptation of the Watergate con’s 1975 autobiography of the same name.

Published by Spire Christian Comics in 1978, Born Again is the sugar-coated, “feel good” story of Chuck Colson’s suffering and redemption. It’s a relatively typical tale in some respects, as Colson professes that he was converted to Evangelical Christianity through the help of his friend Thomas Phillips who had himself been “saved” some time earlier. Phillips provides Colson with a copy of the C.S. Lewis book Mere Christianity and Colson subsequently immerses himself in the text, learning all kinds of Jesusy insight. (Incidentally, despite the fact that he apparently needed “saving,” Colson effectively maintains that he was basically law-abiding – and apparently naïve and blissfully oblivious of the wrongdoing and unethical behavior swirling around him – throughout all of his work with the Nixon administration and CREEP.)